


Take A Shot

by ChibiSquirt



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: BAMF Clint Barton, Clint Barton Feels, Gift Fic, M/M, Protective Clint Barton, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-25
Updated: 2017-05-25
Packaged: 2018-11-04 17:10:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10995297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChibiSquirt/pseuds/ChibiSquirt
Summary: When SHIELD decided they were going to send an agent to assess Tony Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man, the Black Widow was their first choice to do the assessment.Unfortunately (or maybe not so unfortunately), they would have to go with their second choice, instead.





	Take A Shot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Valmasy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valmasy/gifts).



> Many thanks to Buhfly for looking this over me on the (so to speak) fly!

It started with a wager, which was a pretty terrible idea when you got right down to it.  But then, no one had ever accused Strike Team Delta of being full of good ideas.  

(That wasn’t true; it was actually an accusation that was frequently leveled against them.  Just never in their presence.  On the grounds that it might give them _other_ ideas.)

“I’m just saying, Nat.”  Clint tossed a chicken nugget into the air, obviously contemplated catching it in his mouth, and then caught it in the other hand, instead, while he continued.  “I know you’re the ‘Queeeeeen of Essssspionaaaage,’ but you’re not the only one who can get shit done.”

“I believe the wager was $200,” she answered.  There were daggers in her eyes at the challenge, but they were little daggers, more of nail-clippers, really.  That was almost a friendly ‘Hello’ from the Black Widow.

“No,” Phil said.  He was eating a salad and not looking at either of them.  (Probably in disgust.)

“Yeah, that was the number; are you in or are you out?”  Clint threw another chicken nugget, then another, until he had four juggling in the air.  

“You’re going to lose one of those.”

“No, I’m not.  In or out?”

“In.”  She said it carelessly, but Clint had known her for years, now; she was definitely all in.  He smirked at her, and she responded by watching a chicken nugget plunge out of orbit at the height of its arc, falling far short of Clint’s hand.  “See—” she began.

Then stopped.

The chicken nugget had fallen directly into the honey mustard.

Clint smirked at her.

Phil sighed, looking at them both in fond exasperation.  “You’re going to get us all murdered, you do realize that, don’t you?  The world could potentially _literally_ end in nuclear war as a direct result of this?”

Clint looked at Nat; Nat looked at Clint.  They shrugged, in unison, and turned to Phil.  

“He _is_ pretty good,” she pointed out.  “I don’t think even he can mess this up that badly.”

Phil sighed again, this time a lot harder.

 

* * *

 

“Alright, Happy?  Where are you on that car?  Never mind, I’m coming to you.”  Tony shrugged under his jacket, patting absently at his chest to make sure his sunglasses were still hooked into his breast pocket, shimmying his hips to make sure his wallet and phone were in his pockets, escaping from the throng of people outside the newly-opened Expo.

“Don’t do that, sir,” Happy’s voice came through the earpiece he was wearing.  “There’s a problem, here.  There’s a guy.”

“A guy?”  Tony watched Happy straighten in suppressed irritation as he registered the fact that Tony’s voice was now coming, not from his earbud, but from across the lot.  “How could ‘a guy’ get in here, exactly, Happy?  There are walls, there are—Hey!  Who are you?”  He came up to the side of the car, and looked in.  

It was definitely a guy.  Good-looking one, too; dark blond, blue eyes, playful mouth…  He was lightly-built, either the same height or a bit smaller than Tony himself, and while his body seemed, under a deeply appalling veil of flannel, to be toned, he didn’t seem coordinated enough right now to be a threat, considering that his head was lolling stupidly on his neck, his limbs were thrown akimbo, and he smelled, _very_ strongly, of cheap alcohol.  

“Pfew!” Tony said, brushing a hand in front of his nose.  “You alright there, buddy?”  

Either the guy was very, _very_ drunk, or English was his second language, because his face didn’t show comprehension for a full three seconds.  When it did, his eyes lit up like tea candles, little sparks of sheer happiness flickering to life within them.  A childlike smile spread across his mobile mouth.  “Heeeey, I’m _great!”_ He beamed at Tony.  “This is a really comfy bed!”  And then, with a ponderous eyebrow-wiggle which must have taken a significant percentage of the poor sap’s processing power, he added, “You should join me in it!”  His eyebrows continued waggling for a full second and a half after he stopped talking; presumably, he had had to remember to turn them off.

It might have been a better come-on if his voice hadn’t broken in the middle, Tony reflected.

“Yeah, there’s a problem with that,” he told The Guy, who did not yet have a name.  He pulled out his phone and snapped a picture; the guy whined and covered his face from the flash, but was way too slow to actually stop it.  Tony texted the image to JARVIS:   _Who is this???_ “You’re actually not in your bed.”

Blinking.  “I’m not?”

“No, that’s actually my car,” Tony told him.

“Oh.”  The Guy seemed disappointed.  And then, two seconds later, suspicious.  “Wait…  Then where’s the _steering wheel?”_ He said it with the air of one who has trapped another conversationally into revealing a lie and Tony was almost so proud of him for it he couldn’t stand to break the truth to him.

Almost.

He pointed.

“Oh.”  The Guy wasn’t disappointed this time so much as disgruntled.  “Well, you should have _said_ it was the _back_ seat.  Back seat’s almost a bed, you know.  I lost my virginity in a back seat.”  This last bit came out as if conveying a great confidence.  

Then there was more undulating of the eyebrows, this time extra-mobile as if additional enthusiasm could overwhelm Tony’s totally incomprehensible reluctance to have sex with a drunk stranger in the back of a convertible less than three blocks from a horde of paparazzi.  “You should let me take yours,” The Guy slurred.

Tony’s phone beeped.   _Initial ID search matches Clinton H. Babbage, white, male, 36 years; currently unemployed, previous employment, World of Wonder Circus.  Apparently fired for disagreement over the treatment of elephants._

Tony tucked the phone back in his pocket.

“Clinton—”

“Clint.”

“Clint, then.  Do you have any idea who I am?”

Clint blinked completely blankly at him and then smiled slowly.  “Are you the guy who’s about to join me in this very comfy car…?” he asked, obviously thinking he was being clever.

The wind changed and Tony got another nose-full of cheap booze.  

God damn it.  It was like a damned puppy, he couldn’t toss the poor guy out into the street.

Tony huffed out a sigh.  “Yes, apparently I am,” he agreed, hopping over the driver’s-side door.  “Happy?  Passenger seat.”

Happy looked approximately 97% like he wanted to murder Tony himself before this strange drunk yahoo did it for him, but obeyed Tony’s order nevertheless.  

“Hey,” Clint said suddenly as they pulled out into the street.  “Where’s the roof on this thing?”

Tony wasn’t touching that one.

Unfortunately, Happy was.

Tony drove them back to his uptown penthouse while listening to Happy attempt to explain the concept of a convertible.

 

* * *

 

Nat was gonna owe him two hundred dollars, because Tony Stark was a soft touch and this was fuckin’ easy.  

Stark called the hotel while driving-- the whole fuckin’ _car_ was hands-free, it was _fantastic_ — and arranged for a separate room for Clint, but that was okay. As soon as they arrived at their destination, Clint flopped onto Stark like a limpet and started nuzzling the handiest real estate he could — the neck, right below the ear in this case.  Stark twitched, _hard,_ but the booze Clint had gargled before spitting most of it all over himself was working, and Stark still believed Clint was drunk, so he didn’t shove him off while Happy was getting the room key.  

“Where we goin’?” Clint slurred, and Stark twitched again at his voice in his ear.  This was, at least, being hilariously illustrative of Stark’s kinks, even if he didn’t manage the infiltration.  Which he was _totally_ going to manage, and Nat was going to owe him money, and Clint was going to add it to the sum he was already planning to use to buy his sister-in-law a vacation, and she was going to have five nights without the kids, instead of four.  

It was a _plan._

 _“We_ aren’t going anywhere,” Stark informed him.   _“You_ have a room waiting for you on the twenty-third floor.   _I_ am going to the penthouse.”

Clint frowned and nuzzled again.  “But, baby,” he said, making his voice breathy (and still fairly slurry), “if you didn’t want me to join you, why’d you hire me?”

It worked _hilariously_ well.  “I _didn’t!”_ Stark said, too loud and too indignant.  “You broke into my _car,_ you—!”  He stiffened and tried to throw Clint off of him, but Clint figured if he let go he’d never get ahold again and clung.  

He gave it one beat and then two.

And then sniffled.

Stark froze.

Clint sniffled again and then set himself to trembling for good measure.

“No,” Stark warned him.  “No, _motherfucker_ — Don’t you dare!”

Clint bit his bottom lip, huddling even closer to Stark’s back, and let his breath hitch a couple of times.

“Oh, god _damnit,”_ Stark snarled.  _"HAPPY!”_

Last hurdle down:  Stark had just deposited him on the couch in the hotel penthouse, and Happy had trailed his boss to the bedroom, where Stark was presumably making arrangements for dealing with Clint in the morning.  Didn’t matter; what did matter was, Clint had the room to himself for the moment.

Yeah, this was gonna suck.

So, the thing was, Clint had never learned to puke on command.  He could do other things, as he always pointed out defensively whenever this topic was raised; he just... couldn’t do that.  

Which meant he needed to do something to himself if he wanted to bring on nausea.

Pain usually worked best.

So while Stark and Happy were out of the room, Clint punched himself in the balls.

It sucked even more than he had expected, but he did manage to vomit across the carpeted penthouse floor, so that was... okay, not even remotely worth it, and seriously _every time he did this he swore he would never do it again!_

He turned his face into the side of the couch so Stark couldn’t see him grimacing in pain when he came to inspect the source of the noise—although, it wasn’t exactly an easily-mistakable sound—and faked sleep like a champ no matter what Stark did to try to “wake” him.

By six in the morning, Clint was awake in seeming _and_ in reality, and had started a pot of coffee in the kitchenette, which he was watching from a stool pulled right up to the counter so he could grab it as soon as it finished.  

The bet paid off, though.  If _Clint_ were a billionaire philanthropist, he would definitely not get out of bed before noon, and two seemed like a more likely hour.  But Tony Stark must be a stronger man than Clint was—well, come on; no surprise there—because the coffee was still percolating when he walked out of the bedroom, bathrobe wrapped around him with what looked like silk pajama pants underneath it; steered around Clint and his stool; reached right for the pot; and poured himself a cup before sticking it back under the stream.  

“God,” Stark breathed worshipfully.

“Rude,” Clint grunted.

Stark looked at him side-eyed and then, deliberately, slurped some of the coffee he’d pilfered from right under Clint’s nose.  “You’re sitting in my house,” he started.

“Hotel room.”

“—having puked on my carpet—”

“The hotel’s carpet.”

“—after breaking into my car—”

“I mean, it’s not exactly hard to get into a _convertible_ — _”_

“—which was locked in a protected lot with walls thirty feet high!”

“Oh, yeah,” Clint said, pleased.  “That was pretty slick, wasn’t it?”

There was a beat of silence while Stark held his coffee protectively close to himself and they stared at each other.

Clint broke it, of course.  “Why isn’t Tony Stark worried about being photographed in his jammies—nice lack of a shirt, by the way, and is that the famous arc reactor?—with a strange, potentially gay, man?”

“I swept the room for bugs and recording devices; the only ones active right now are my own.”  Stark sipped his coffee again, but he’d taken one hand away from the cup to pinch his bathrobe shut, looking surprisingly maidenly given the goatee, and he had also forgotten to slurp obnoxiously again, so Clint figured he was making progress.  

Also, that was good intel about Stark’s bug-sweeping habits.  

“Also,” Stark continued, “there are no sight-lines into this room from any of the surrounding buildings.  It’s a habitual check my people run whenever they book a room.”

“Good people,” Clint said, finally picking the coffee-pot up and pouring a mug.  This was a nice hotel; the mugs were real ceramic, and bore the hotel logo on the side.

“They are, actually,” Stark agreed.  He casually turned away as if bored and started rifling through the kitchenette’s drawers.

“Not in there,” Clint told him, at _last_ drinking his fucking coffee.

“What isn’t?”

“The knives.”  Stark looked up.  “Or the corkscrew, or the scissors, or—and this one was a surprise, I have to admit, mostly because I didn’t see it go in there—the .38 caliber Stark semi taped to the inside of the cupboard under the sink.”  He paused.  “Good call checking the sight-lines, but your people aren’t looking hard enough; shooters who can take you out from a mile away are rare, but they _do_ exist.”  He smiled humorlessly.  “I’m one of them, by the way.”

“And yet you are here—significantly less than a mile away—and unarmed,” Stark observed.  “And also, revealing yourself.”

“Yeah, well... you said there weren’t any bugs,” Clint shrugged.  Then he set down his coffee and held out his hand.  “Hi.  I’m Clint—don’t bother with the last name, that’s fake, anyway—and I’m an Agent of SHIELD.”  

“Nice to meet you, Agent Clint—” Sarcasm so cold it _burned._  “—now why the hell are you here?”

Clint grinned, spreading his hands.  “I mean, you pick a cover—I’m sure you’ll have fun with that—but you _do_ seem to need a way more competent bodyguard, so...”

Stark’s eyes narrowed.  “If your _cover_ is that you’re my bodyguard, then why are you _actually_ here?”

Clint lost his smile.  “Can’t tell you,” he said seriously.  “But my orders are: stick close.”

Stark moved when he thought, Clint noted, his fingers tapping away, tap tap tap, on his mug, on his chest, on the counter...

No, wait—there was something Clint was missing there, what was it?  He thought back, and then remembered what Stark had looked like, coming out of his bedroom this morning: stride slow and slinking, casual, hands stuffed in his pockets... but the front of his bathrobe had been shifting a little, as he were tapping his hidden fingers against his thighs.

Huh.

Clint took a sip of coffee to cover his disappointment and Stark went still.  “SHIELD has already been told that they will not be licensed any Stark tech and, should any show up in the hands off SHIELD agents, SI will not hesitate to sue.”

Clint stiffened and tried not to be offended.  “I’m not here for _industrial espionage!_ If I wanted to do something that lame, I’d have stayed in Iowa.”

Oddly, this answer seemed to reassure Stark, because his shoulders and spine relaxed and when he’d finished pouring his second cup of coffee, he offered Clint the rest of the pot.

 

* * *

 

The thing was, it was probably a dick move on Clint’s part.  In fact, entirely a dick move on Clint’s part.  But Stark had made him before he’d confessed, and Clint’s pride was still stinging from that.  

(What had given him away?  He was certain Stark hadn’t known last night—he would never have let Clint sleep on his couch if he had—but however Clint had managed to slip up, Stark must have realized it before leaving his room this morning.

And yet he still left his room.  In an attractively-draped bathrobe.

Stark was definitely a mystery, no question about that.)

So yeah, Clint was still a little salty by the time they were leaving the penthouse, but most of all, he wanted to avoid having an extended discussion about it, so he waited until they were walking out the door before he turned to Stark and said, “By the way…  My bosses at SHIELD don’t know that _you_ know that I’m an agent.  Let’s keep it that way?”  He’d smiled, light and mostly friendly, showing a lot of teeth, before slipping his shades on; Stark’s eyes had narrowed, but he’d nodded, so Clint figured he was going to go along with it.

The problem was, Phil had definitely not authorized Clint to tell Stark he was an agent of SHIELD.  That was Clint’s call, and Clint’s alone. To be honest, he would probably catch some flak for it when Phil finally found out but Clint was figuring that by the time that happened, it would be too late for Phil to pull him from the op.  That was why Clint hadn’t planned to tell Stark—no way to be sure no one was listening—but Stark’s confidence in his bug sweep was no joke: if anyone could know the best tech in listening devices, Stark was it.  So Clint had seized the moment, confiding a truth which would (hopefully) beget more truth, and now he just needed to cover his ass to keep it from getting out.

And now he had done that.

In the most passive-aggressive way possible, but he had.

Eh, whatever; it suited the persona.

 

* * *

 

The agenda for the day seemed prosaic.  Stark was flying back to Malibu—Clint now coming along, which Happy arranged with airport while obviously failing to live up to his name—but, once there, he didn’t seem to have any pressing appointments or anything.  He just went down to his workshop and played with what looked like simulations of some kind.

“What is that?” Clint asked, eventually.  He was hanging out in the corner, out of Stark’s line of sight, doing a headstand with his legs crossed for balance, juggling.

Eh, it passed the time.

When he spoke, Stark flicked a guilty look in his direction— _why guilty?_ Clint wondered—and said shortly, “Neoconfiguration polyatomic ions.”

“Aaaaand what is that?”

“It’s a polyatomic ion in a different shape.”

“Oh.”

Stark struggled against it—held out for a good two minutes!—but eventually sighed, pushing away from the workbench a bit, and asked.  “…Do you know what a polyatomic ion is?”

“Is it an ion that’s open to multiple romantic relationships?” Clint asked, flipping his legs down and standing to stretch his arms over his head.

“Oh, God.  Okay, do you know what an ion is?”

“Is it part of what makes up a battery?” he cringed.

He should probably have seen this coming, the part where hanging out with Tony Stark highlighted how much of an idiot he was.

But Stark was smiling, pointing at him.  “Yes!  Okay, yes, that is one of the things ions can do.  Basically, an ion is a molecule with a charge on it; line enough of them up, set up a dump with the opposing charge, and you get electricity.  Put a bunch of differently-charged ions in a solution—”  He picked up his smoothie and swirled it to demonstrate, “—you get a liquid that conducts electricity.  That’s what humans are,” he added.  

“…solutions that conduct electricity?”

“In a skin bag, yes,” Stark confirmed.  

(He also sipped his smoothie, which in context was pretty much entirely horrifying.  Clint tried not to look.)

“So then what’s a polyatomic ion?”

“Simple enough.  Some ions are single atoms—salt, for example.  In solution, it dissociates into sodium—Na, 1+—and chlorine—Cl, 1-.  Each part is a monoatomic ion.”

“Wait, chlorine like the pool?” Clint interrupted.

“Yes, exactly.  Basically, too much is toxic.  But some ions are made up of more than one atom, bonded together.  Fertilizer, for example—that’s usually made up of a nitrogen and three oxygens, bonded together, taking a single charge.  Just like the chlorine does.”

“Okay…so what’s…?”

“Usually, you use a smaller number of atoms in your polyatomic ions, and they always have the same shape, because there’s only one way they can go,” Stark explained. “Like making a maze.  You ask a guy to draw a three-by-three maze, he’s gonna draw one of about three different shapes, because there’s no other way to do it.  You up it to a sixteen-by-sixteen maze, suddenly there are a bunch of different ways to draw it.  I’m looking at sixteen-square mazes and seeing if there are other ways to draw it that haven’t been tried yet.”

“Which there are,” Clint summarized, “Because when you get that big, the possibilities expand exponentially.  Right?”

 _The possibilities expand exponentially_ was lifted from Phil’s reports; it was Phil’s favorite way of saying _the shitshow will become a shit-carnival_ without using Clint’s vocabulary.

Stark spread his hands, beaming.  “Perfect,” he praised, and for a moment, Clint felt the warm glow of it inside.

“So what do you need a new ion for?”

He could actually, literally _see_ Stark’s face shutting down.  “Personal project,” Stark said.  “We’ll see how it goes.  But none of the traditional configurations were helping, so…”  He tapped his fingers on his desk, and then turned full-body away.  “As you were,” he said, sounding bored.

Clint frowned at his back, not moving for a long, long minute, before finally leaving to go hunt up some food.

 

* * *

 

So the thing was, Pepper Potts—which, who _names their kid that,_ seriously?!—man, she just really did not like Clint, at all.

The look on her face when she tripped into Stark’s workshop—not literally, which, considering the heels:  impressive!—it was, you know... less than great.  

She was not a fan.  

Clint really couldn’t blame her, to be honest.  Strange man, showing up all un-background-checked, drifting in her boss’s wake?  Could be anyone?  Yeah, she had some reason to be concerned.  

But this was where it got confusing—and was where Clint got his first real glimpse of the guy Phil talked about.  

You know, the one who blew off talking to SHIELD seven times in a row, despite Phil sitting in his office.  The one who tossed a painstakingly-constructed cover story away like it was holding in a dutch oven.  The one who did a press conference with one arm in a sling and the other hand holding a cheeseburger like some kind of even-more-fucked-up-than-usual Alanis Morissette cover.  

Stark _could_ have told her Clint was a bodyguard.  He could have made up a cover.  He could have told her he’d had Happy check him.  He could have told her he’d had _JARVIS_ check him.

Instead, Stark looked at her, then at Clint; had obviously, _sensually_ licked his lower lip; and then had said Clint was his, “Hmmm...‘bodyguard’.  Right, Clint?”  

And then he’d raised an eyebrow.  And smirked.

So yeah, Potts thought they were fucking.

And it didn’t make _sense._ Bodyguard was a perfectly sensible, perfectly acceptable cover, even taking into account that Stark knew that wasn’t actually why he was here.  Implying that Clint was a hooker, on the other hand, did nothing but antagonize a woman who had, by all accounts, shown out more ex-lovers of Stark’s than she’d had two-day weekends.  

Potts was protective, Clint already _knew_ that from her dossier.  And furthermore, she was a professional.  She also took major issue with mixing the professional with the personal.  (That was also in her file, but Clint would have known it anyway, because if she were okay with doing that, then there was no one she could have done it with better than Tony Stark.  She wasn’t; therefore, she wouldn’t.)

Stark _could_ have gone with the bodyguard cover; instead, he tweaked Potts’ nose by implying Clint was a fuckboy.  

_Why?_

JARVIS, on the other hand, seemed to like Clint even more than Stark did, and Stark (for whatever reason) seemed to like Clint just fine.  

Stark had officially introduced him to JARVIS when they had first arrived at the Malibu house; however, based on the knowledge that JARVIS ran rampant through computer systems and also on the fact that smartphones existed, Clint hypothesized that Tony had in fact introduced _him_ to _JARVIS_ some time earlier.  Whenever that had been, however, it didn’t appear to dim JARVIS’s fondness for him.

They had arrived from New York at just past noon, California time, and Stark had immediately headed down to his workshop, immersing himself in schemes and schematics for what looked like purely-Stark-Industries-related designs.  (At the overview level, that was.  At the level Stark was actually working in, they could have been maps to the lost cities of the Ancients and Clint wouldn’t have known the difference.)  

He stayed down for most of the night, swilling some truly disgustingly-looking smoothies and graciously ordering pizza for Clint, finally staggering to bed at three in the morning.  (Clint was invited to a guest bedroom, which he thought was pretty decent of Stark.)

(He pulled the blankets and pillows off, and bunked down outside Stark’s door.  No need to make the bodyguard cover _too_ pathetically transparent.)

It was that morning (at eight, this time, which Clint assumed could be attributed to jet lag) that Clint figured out that JARVIS liked him:

Stark had another Love Potion Number Nine for breakfast.  Clint, on the other hand, got cereal.

Stark appeared genuinely shocked that there was even cereal in the house.

“Why wouldn’t there be?” Clint asked around a mouthful of Waffle Crisp.  “Don’t you eat cereal?”

“Not usually, no.”  Stark edged cautiously closer and sniffed, which—as Clint could have told him, if he hadn’t had his mouth full—could only result in the heady aromas of corn syrup and artificial maple flavoring mixing with the sweet, dairy-licious ambrosia of full-fat milk.  

Clint held out his spoon.  “Here,” he said.  “Try some.”  

Stark looked at the tiny baby waffle lying in a bath of milk in the spoon, then at Clint, back at the spoon, back at Clint.

Stark broke and sprinted for the workshop.

There was only one person in the building who could have noticed that Clint was terrified of those smoothies and thought to order Waffle Crisp, and it definitely wasn’t the guy who had run away at the thought.  So as Clint set his bowl in the sink, he whispered, “Thanks, JARVIS,” under his breath.

“You are very welcome, Mr. Babbage.”

Clint winced at the alias and headed down after Tony.

 

* * *

 

The Monaco trip did not go well.

> _“No, come on, what is this.  You’re going to trail me to the bathroom?  Really?  What, do I need hall pass?  Are you going to watch me tinkle?  Come on, get out of here, go—”_

On the other hand, it could have gone much worse.

> _“In a crowd this size?  Security concerns are mind-boggling; I’ve already seen at least three guys capable of abducting you—”_
> 
> _“They can try.”  Tony was actually kind of scary when he growled like that._
> 
> _Not that Clint was going to let him know that.  “Yeah, try_ and succeed.” _He rolled his eyes. “Look, I’m not going into the stall with you, just do your thing and we can get out of this shithole—”_
> 
> _Stark turned abruptly, pulling him into the bathroom and shutting the door behind them precisely as if he hadn’t just been protesting that very thing, sweeping the room with a glance Clint was just fast enough to spot this time._
> 
> _“You don’t like it here.”_
> 
> _He sounded surprised and detached, as if one of his science-y experiment-type things had gone wrong in a way that was totally outside the realm of possible results.  As if Clint were a robot who, upon being instructed to put a wrench in a toolbox, had picked up the wrench and started dancing like it was a microphone:  unexpected, inexplicable, but possibly fascinating._
> 
> _Clint shrugged, uncomfortable with the amount of scrutiny Stark was giving him. “It’s not exactly my crowd,” he muttered, not meeting Stark’s eyes.  Clint always had worked best when he was able to observe from the shadows, something he possibly should have remembered before going to work for a guy with a brilliant light constantly strapped to his chest._
> 
> _When he glanced up, Tony had looked away, almost as if_ he _were feeling nervous about the conversation.  “Yeah,” he admitted.  “Not my favorite crowd, either.”_
> 
> _There was silence in the washroom for a minute, interrupted by the faint_ drip, drip, drip _of the faucet, not fully-turned-off by the last asshole who’d been in here, the faint roar of the cars passing by outside.  Clint felt himself moving backwards even as he stood still with his back pressed to the wall.  Why was Tony even here, he wondered, if he didn’t actually even_ like _these people…?_
> 
> _Stark recovered first, of course.  “Let’s get out of here,” he commanded briskly.  “Come on, let’s go—do you need to take a piss?  There’s a stall—”_
> 
> _“Yeah, yeah, I’m going—” Clint said, breaking the mood—_

That was definitely the part where he should have kept his mouth shut, in retrospect.  He pressed his ice-pack more firmly into his aching calf.

> _“—go check your blood sugar or whatever you do.”_
> 
> _Stark froze.  “What was that?”_
> 
> _Clint rolled his eyes.  “Or don’t, whatever.”  He turned away and tucked himself into a stall, and when he took a dump, he added a couple extra-noisy grunts, just to be obnoxious._

Yeah, this one was going down in history as “not his greatest series of decisions ever.”

> _Stark was gone by the time Clint left the stall, so silently that Clint didn’t even hear him go._

How the fuck was that motherfucker so quiet, anyway?!

> _By the time Clint got back to Potts, she was staring in helpless rage at the newscast showing Stark being wrapped into the car.  “Shit,” Clint breathed, and beat it like hell down to the track._
> 
> This is probably something Tasha would do differently, _he thought, leaping barriers and shoving_ slow-moving assholes _out of his_ goddamn way! _But then, Tasha’s cover was as a secretary...  Clint had seen her in-character during the signing of the company over to Potts, and had been almost too horrified to burst into laughter._ Whereas I am a shifty-ass ex-Carnie bodyguard, which means I do this—
> 
> _He shoved past some jerkwad in a suit who was trying to object to him accessing the track._
> 
> —my—
> 
> _He leaped the final gate, coming out into the track-area proper, only to turn and vault up on top of a small covered patio to get better sightlines._
> 
> —way!
> 
> _So far, so good; no visible threats to Stark, aside from the hundreds of pounds of machinery which was going to rocket around a famously-difficult course at hundreds of miles per hour.  But at least Clint could clear the on- and off-staging area…  He scanned the crowd for threats, heart pounding in his throat, so focused that he almost (only almost) didn’t see the race actually start._

“At least he was winning the damned race,” Clint said out loud, scowling as he fished a piece out of the bag on his leg and crunched it.  “You know, before the homicidal maniac showed up.”

> _The mysterious figure who would later be revealed to be Ivan Vanko had stepped onto the track while Clint was still turned the other way, watching for Tony’s car.  It had been almost too late by the time he turned back, seeing the glow, the whips, the incredibly bad fashion choices..._

“I’m lucky Tony put me down as his bodyguard,” he admitted glumly to the ice pack.  “I should probably be in jail right now.”

Clint had made the judgement call and taken the shot, putting one in Vanko’s hip, close enough to the junk to give him pause as well as doing a hefty amount of damage while not outright killing Vanko (they might need to question him).  Vanko, not going down without a fight, had swung his whip at Clint, wrapping it around his leg and pulling hard enough to jerk Clint out of his nest.  

It worked, mostly; the distraction meant that Vanko was still in the road when the cars reached him, barreling into him and doing all of the damage Clint had been terrified would be done to Tony, instead.  

Now, Vanko was locked in a secured hospital facility, and Clint was benched in a hotel room with an ice pack and a furious Pepper Potts fielding calls about the incident outside.  

And meanwhile, Tony was visiting a _confirmed homicidal maniac_ in the hospital.

 _This is not a great plan!_ Clint fumed to himself, and then started the angriest hunt for a television remote since that stakeout in Belgrade three years ago.

 

* * *

 

Tony made it back in one piece, thank god, but Clint was still sulking when he got there.  Tony obvious knew and anticipated the situation, too, because he showed up with actual Italian pizza—like, from Italy Italian, which turned out not to be nearly as good as Domino’s—and sat way too close to Clint on the sofa when he arrived.

“Eat a piece of pizza,” he said under his breath, not looking at Clint, “and then follow my lead, okay?”

“Why the _fuck—”_

 _“Fuck,_ just— _do it!”_ He slung the pizza box sideways without looking into Clint’s stomach.

The box itself was cold, but the pizza inside was hot; Tony must have flown it over personally, and that mental image—of Iron Man’s angry-looking eyes glowing over a steaming pizza box—was enough to cut through Clint’s seething frustration.  Clint ate a slice, watching Tony out of the corner of his eye, and then put the box down and obediently waited for Tony’s next move.

Which was to crawl into Clint’s lap and knock them both flat on the couch, and then to drop his mouth onto Clint’s and make out.

And, okay, you read about _Tony Stark,_ about the people he could get in bed which—considering that _one_ of the things Clint had read involved the entire Italian women’s volleyball team— _did imply_ a certain level of skill, but...

...wow.  

Like seriously:   _wow._ Clint was damned near seeing stars, and this was just a _kiss—_ imagine what Tony could do if he got his hands involved.  Or moved his mouth someplace other than Clint’s face.  Or...

Clint made a noise, like a happy, humming kind of noise, and focused in, trying to figure out what kind of kissing Tony liked best.  Did he like being the aggressor, or did he want Clint to take the lead?  Or was he a “tongues battling for dominance” kind of guy?  Did he like long, plunging exchanges, or did he like to kiss fast and pull back, kiss and pull back, over and over and over again?  

He was just starting to catch it—kissing Tony was like telling a joke with five punchlines, and all of them were good—when Pepper Potts walked in.

Clint went cold.  No _wonder_ Stark was putting on a show.

Fuck; for a moment there, Clint had thought...

...well, it didn’t matter what Clint had thought.

_Apparently._

Tony pulled back—he had left beard burn around Clint’s mouth—and smiled at him, bitter and self-hating and sardonic, before looking up at Potts.

Clint caught his breath.   _That expression..._ There was something critically important about that expression, but he couldn’t put his damned _finger on it..._

“Did you need something?” Stark asked, head cocked to the side.  “Because—I mean, if you’re not busy, I’m pretty sure _I’m_ busy—”

“You’re an ass, and that man you just came back from talking to—you know, the one who tried to _kill you_ earlier today?”

“I think that’s a _great_ reason to talk to him—”

“Well, he just died in an explosion, which makes you a potential culprit.  Get off the couch, we’re going home.”

“Home?  Now?  Really?”

“Really.”

“But the couch is so comfy.”  Tony was already moving, though, prying himself up off of Clint.

“How can you even tell the couch is comfy?  You’re not on the couch, you’re on _Clint—”_

“Well, _Clint_ seems to think it’s comfy—”

“—and anyway, I don’t even know why you brought him—”

“—bodyguard—”

“—he is _obviously_ not really your bodyguard—”

Clint let his head press back against the pillows for a minute, letting their noise wash over him.  He had missed something, in there.  Multiple somethings, actually.  Fuck, if Natasha had to get called in because he was missing shit he was never going to hear the end of it.

Italian pizza.

Tony’s mouth—no, don’t think about that.

The sharp-edged smile as Tony pulled back.  

Potts, angry (in heels).

Tony’s mouth again—fuck, okay, _maybe_ think about it for a minute.   _One minute._ That’s _all._  No, you have to stop now.  

Moving on!

Attacker, dead in explosion.

Yep; that was it.

“Stark.”

Tony and Potts, both almost to the door of the room, turned almost in unison to look at Clint where he was still lying, flat, face-up on the couch.

“He’s not dead.”

“Uhhh, sorry?”  Tony’s eyes flicked, rapid-fire, from Potts to Clint and back again.  He had only been pretending, a second ago, but this—the sharp assessment, the incisive insight—this was real.   “Who’s not dead?”

“Whip-dude.  Dom from hell, fuck, what was his name?”

“Vanko.  You’re basing this on, what?  A feeling?  Or do you know something we don’t?”

“What could he possibly know that we don’t?”  It should have been a simple objection, but somehow Clint knew that Potts was really asking: she wanted his info, and she wanted to know how he had gotten his info.  All hidden behind a mask of stereotypical nagging, a deliberately chauvinist caricature of a woman; Stark was not the only one habitually playing games.

“It’s a classic play,” Clint told her.  “How to fake your Death 101:  Explosions are your friends.  He’s not fucking dead.”

“So what?”  Tony shrugged, elaborately unconcerned (which meant it was a lie).  “He’s alive, big deal.”  

And those words were _another_ lie:  Tony was fronting, he knew exactly what Vanko could do, even more than Clint.   _You lie ‘cause there’s something you’re scared people will know; what is it about Vanko that’s scaring Stark?_

Clint sat up.  “Come on,” he said, “Pack.  We’re leaving tonight for Malibu, and then I’ve got some calls to make on the way.”

“Calls?  Who are you calling?  Tony—”

“Let him call whoever,” Tony brushed it off.  “We can leave for Malibu, that’s fine.”

“Great.”  Clint watched him, but nothing was jumping out.

_The bitter, self-hating look on Tony’s face when he stopped kissing Clint..._

See, but that just led to thoughts of Tony kissing him, and those made it _really hard_ to focus on anything else...

_The look on Tony’s face..._

Angry.

Pained.

_...Satisfied._

Fuck, what the hell was Stark _doing?!_

 

* * *

 

The thing was, Clint fucking loved flying.  It always took him back, to the circus—yeah, of course; being in the air was as close to the trapeze as he could come, these days—but also even earlier.  As a child, he’d looked out the windows of their shitty chevy, and watched the world rushing past, and it had been magical.  He had never quite lost that joy, no matter how dusty and humdrum the world had become.  Even now, watching the ground pass away beneath him was soothing; the faster the better, and planes went as fast as anything could.

So when they hopped on a private jet—it was good to be Stark—Clint didn’t fuss about being closed in for several hours; he just put his chair back, and his feet up—legroom, another advantage to travelling with Tony—looked out the window at the ground passing below, and took the opportunity to think.

Especially since Stark was in the other part of the jet, the little kitchenette.  Fuck, what was he doing, making a souffle or something?  

There were things Clint couldn’t get out of his head, and the wind whipping the clouds away beneath them helped him focus.  The things Tony was doing weren’t making sense; they almost formed a pattern, but not quite.  So Clint spent the long length of the Atlantic Ocean tossing facts and incidents into a new order, trying to see the fucking _point._

He still hadn’t found it by the time they touched down.

But then, he shrugged to himself, it wasn’t really going to surprise anyone that Tony Stark was smarter than he was.  He would have to just keep watching, keep waiting, and bide his time until Tony slipped up, even while Clint worked his ass off to keep him alive.

 

* * *

 

Clint hesitated, hand on the coffee pot, but he couldn’t put it off any longer; he needed the information on Vanko.  Vanko was a feral cat of a man, the kind that took on raccoons and domestic dogs alike, and Clint’s instincts screamed that he was still out there somewhere, still ready to kill Tony—unacceptable, both because it was the mission and, if Clint were honest with himself, because Clint genuinely _liked_ Tony.  So he really _needed_ to find where Vanko had gone to ground, and, unfortunately, the only way to get that information was to blow his cover all to shit.

He winced; this was going to suck a lot.

“JARVIS,” he called, glumly searching through the cabinets until he found straws, “Call Phil Coulson.”

JARVIS was ominously silent as Clint found the straws and went to sit down at the kitchen table.  

“And how would you be acquainted with Agent Coulson?”  JARVIS inquired, voice chilly.  (How exactly did an AI make that work, anyway?)

Clint hunched glumly over the table, coffee pot in front of him; he tucked a straw through the open neck and started sipping.  “He’s my boss,” he answered.

JARVIS did the foreboding-four-seconds-of-silence again.  When he spoke again, his voice could have been used to pack corpse organs for transport.  

“Placing call now.”  

 

* * *

 

Phil was _furious._  He ripped Clint a new one up one side and down the other, and if Clint were not legitimately worried about his target getting deadified in the next week, he would have never done this in the first place.  But he _was_ worried, and he _did_ have cause _—_ as was revealed when Phil discovered that Vanko was indeed alive, and apparently working for _Hammer_ of all people—and Phil did grudgingly admit that Tony’s survival trumped the assessment, so that was something, at least.  

Also, when Clint hung up, Phil told him gently to, “Take care of him, would you?”  

Which was... weird?  

But kind of nice?

Anyway.

Clint was turning to go upstairs and tell Tony the news when JARVIS stopped him cold.  “Agent Barton.”

He winced at the formality.  “Can’t I just be Clint again, JARVIS?”

JARVIS didn’t really make humming noises as he thought, not even the _whirr_ fan-noise of a working computer, but Clint still got the impression he was thinking during the small—half a second, max!—pause that followed.  “I observe that you are behaving in ways which are, perhaps, less than beneficial to yourself.”

So JARVIS had managed to overhear the reaming-out that Clint just got; cool.  “Uh.”  Clint winced.  “I mean... yeah?  Business as usual, right?”  Hopefully that wasn’t enough to prejudice JARVIS against SHIELD?  Life was gonna suck if he had to constantly navigate the acronym showdown.

“I am programmed to attempt to ensure that those entrusted to my care are living successful lives,” JARVIS told him, and between the tone and the _lack_ of a pause before it, Clint thought he might be forgiven for hiding his profession from the AI.  But then he thought about the actual words JARVIS had used, instead of the tone, and he pretty much had to answer him.

“You know...”  He sucked on his coffee thoughtfully—or, well, as thoughtfully as he really got, anyway.  “I’m not like Tony.  I’m not a brilliant engineer—heck, I’m not a brilliant anything!  I’m just _the guy who shoots things,_ JARVIS.  I’m not, like, a _decision-maker_ or anything like that.  I mean, Tony—he’s a few _million_ or so levels above me, right?  I figure, it makes sense, if someone’s gonna get screwed...”  

 _...it might as well be me instead of him._ But JARVIS had probably picked that up from the way he trailed off.

And yeah, JARVIS wasn’t wrong.  Phil was definitely going to get vengeance for Clint blowing this op—although, Clint was prepared to argue (loudly) that he had already gotten a significant amount of intel on Stark _and_ had established enough trust that it might not be necessary to withdraw him—and Natasha was going to do the final assessment and that sucked, because Natasha was at best a bitter, man-hating pessimist where “man” in this case meant “human,” and she would put the worst possible spin on whatever she saw.  It might even lead to Tony being rejected—to be fair, he _did_ have some issues—and that was pretty fundamentally Not Cool because Tony was _amazing_ and Clint really wanted to work with him...  And also it was going to tank Clint’s career because Coulson was really the One Guy who could work with Clint on the regular; everybody else got caught up on Clint’s playful personality and ignored the way he really needed someone to lead him, and...

But, heck.  Tony was in some serious danger from this Vanko asshole, and that _had_ to count more.

It dawned on him, then, the ridiculousness of his situation: standing in pajama pants, in the middle of a billionaire’s kitchen, talking to an AI while drinking coffee straight from the pot through a straw.  He smiled, bitter and burnt with it, but—hell.  At least his smashing fireball of a life was shedding some light on someone else’s, right?  

He put the pot in the sink when it was empty, and turned to leave the kitchen.

He froze.

Tony Stark had all kinds of shit on his walls, including a bunch of art each one of which was worth more than Clint had made cumulatively in his entire life, but the thing that got Clint’s attention at that moment was a giant fuck-off mirror.  It was _also_ probably hideously expensive, because it was _huge_ and just making and moving glass that size is a hassle, but the important part here was that it was hanging opposite the entryway to the kitchen on the opposing wall.  

In other words, Clint had turned to leave and come face-to-face with his own reflection—a reflection wearing a very familiar expression.

Specifically, it was the expression whose meaning had been evading Clint since Tony had worn it after distracting and annoying Pepper in Monaco.  

 _Quick, what the fuck was I just thinking about?!_ If he could remember what that face meant on _him,_ he could figure out where _Tony_ was coming from, right?  

Except... what he had been thinking about was taking one for the team.  Making sure Tony was safe, that was going to destroy Clint’s whole life, _that’s_ what he had been thinking about.

A chill worked its way down his spine and he stiffened.  He felt suddenly nauseous, and he was pretty sure it wasn’t because he’d just drunk most of a pot of black coffee through a straw.  “JARVIS,” he said, and suddenly his voice came out differently.  This was his “business” voice, the one he used on comms 90% of the time, the one that told Coulson that his head was in the game.  “Are you programmed to answer a straightforward question honestly?”

“Provided I have not been specifically ordered to lie to you, yes.”

“Yeah.  Good thing I’m dumb; a lot of people just forget about me.  We’ll hope Tony’s one of ‘em.”  He turned back into the kitchen, slowly putting together a sandwich on a plate and starting a new pot of coffee.  Was there cream in the fridge?  He’d put some in the coffee when it was ready.  

“You can only ask,” JARVIS said, but his tone suggested embarrassment.  That was a yes, then, Tony _had_ forgotten that Clint would ask JARVIS.

“Is Tony Stark suicidal?”

He paused in spreading mayo—lots and lots of mayo—on the wheat bread while he waited for JARVIS to answer.  After a second, JARVIS said, “He is not attempting to kill himself,” in a tone that suggested his words were being carefully chosen— _another_ marvel of engineering, since JARVIS was a computer and computers just took longer to start speaking in the first place, they didn’t think out their sentences as they went.

So Clint was close, JARVIS was saying.

Clint piled roast beef onto the bread and thought furiously.  “Is he likely to die in the next year regardless of whether he’s trying to or not?”  How big was this problem, exactly?

“Yes.”

“...Probability?”   _H_ _ow big is this problem, exactly?_

“One-hundred percent.”

Clint paused, remembering everything he had seen of Stark—of Tony—in the last few weeks.  

He said, “Call Phil back, please.”  

And when that conversation was done, he was gonna go throw a sandwich at an engineer.

 

* * *

 

Stark came and found him after Hammer had been arrested, pounding on the door of his shitty hotel room in Boston.

“You know, Hammer was scheduled to present at my expo,” was Tony’s opener, and as openers went, it was promisingly un-furious.  

“Yeah, I heard that,” Clint said.  It had been in the report, actually.  “Hey, more importantly, are you not-dying yet?”

Tony’s face twitched, and he looked away.  “Yeah,” he said. “Your boss, he came through for me.  Well—you knew that.  You were... there.  Kind of.”

Clint had been called off the assignment and sent down to New Mexico, only to find that his phone, comms, laptop, and on one memorable occasion his car keys had all patched through an audio line for Tony.  

It was _possible_ that Thor had at one point overheard Tony narrating the building of the particle accelerator to him.  And also explaining the fifth-grade physics Clint had missed about what a particle accelerator would _do,_ exactly.  Clint couldn’t be sure without asking, but he was guessing from the look on the guy’s face it was a yes.

So, yes.  Clint had... well, he had what information Tony had _told_ him, anyway.  That didn’t form a complete picture, though, witness the several weeks-slash-months Tony had spent lying to everyone.  

“Not dying,” Tony was saying now, “Also not the target of an insane man bent on extracting revenge for something I didn’t do, honestly my life is boring now.”

Clint laughed, a sharp bark that... probably sounded more nervous than he completely wanted to, honestly.

“No, seriously.”  Tony knocked him with his shoulder as he brushed past him to enter the room.  “I’m actually... much, much better now.”  He settled himself down on the shitty chair near the bed, looking at Clint soberly, and Clint felt his shoulder muscles contracting; tension.  

He wasn’t used to being looked at the way Tony was looking at him.

“I, uh...”  Tony’s fingers were tapping against his leg, tap-tap-tap, tap-tap-tap, a nervous little gesture.  He caught Clint watching them and went still, then moved his hand back as if literally sitting on it.  “...I’m told I owe much of my current well-being to you.”

“Nah.”  Clint shook his head immediately.  “You’d’ve made it.  I just made the call to make it happen sooner.”

Tony watched him steadily.  “Speaking of,” he said abruptly.  “Did this seem... weirdly fast to you?  Anticlimactic, maybe?”

Clint grimaced, and went to sit on the bed— the only other place to sit in the room.  He thought about it, about how the situation might have gone if he hadn’t been involved.  About how things would have played out if _Nat_ were the agent on-scene.  “Nah,” he said again.  He leaned forward, elbows braced on his thighs.  “I don’t really work like that, y’know?”

Tony’s shoulders had been twitching—his hands moving despite him sitting on them—but now they went still.  “Um?  No, I—sorry, I really _don’t_ know.”  He looked embarrassed and squirrely, and Clint made a mental note that Stark didn’t like not knowing the answers.  (Not really a surprise, at this point...)

“Yeah.  Figures.”  Clint rubbed the bridge of his nose and wiped some sleep from his nap out of his eyes.  “Look.  I don’t _dick around,_ all right?  I don’t need drama or bullshit or anything.  I see a problem, I deal with the problem.  That’s just the kind of guy I am.”  He smiled into Tony’s eyes, which were big and brown and deep and a little bit scared.  “And, yeah, I got in some trouble for calling it this way.  But long story short, if I’m in position to take the shot, I’m not gonna sit there wondering about all the five thousand implications and consequences of firing.  I’m not going to put it off in order to spare some asshole’s feelings or whatever.  I’m just gonna take the shot.”

They stared at each other for a minute, as seagulls screeched their unholy yells outside the window and someone slammed a door down the hallway.  Then Tony shifted, pulling his hands out from under him, waving them in front of him like they were supposed to convey something.

“Well,” Tony said, “thanks.  You know, for sending a weirdly-hot SHIELD agent to stab me in the neck and give me time to solve it.”  He let his hands fall, his eyes seeming to plead with Clint to understand whatever the hell hidden meaning he had going on.

“You’re welcome,” Clint said.  “Was it a neoconfiguration polyatomic ion?”

Tony dropped his head, looking down for a second before glancing up, his eyes warm and crinkling at the corners.  “The SHIELD thing was.  Final solution wasn’t.  Which you knew, because I explained it to you while building the accelerator.”

“I may have just been proud of myself for remembering the words,” Clint admitted.

“Uh-huh; sure.  ‘Cause you’re so dumb, right?”  

This was new.  “Um?”

“Yeah,” Tony said, “That’s what I thought.”  He looked down at his hands, fingers tapping away as if there were an invisible keyboard, and Clint tried to stop feeling naked.

People didn’t notice that Clint had a brain; that wasn’t how things worked.

It especially wasn’t how they worked when the people in question were Tony Stark levels of smart.

But Clint wasn’t—quite—prepared to object, not quite prepared to insist that he was stupid when all he’d ever wanted was for someone to tell him he wasn’t.  And Tony apparently was able to read that on him, because the shy smile he was wearing—so different from the usual, brassy, public one—was spreading all the way across his face.

He bumped Clint’s shoulder.  “Hey,” he asked, “wanna make out?”

Clint laughed, shocked.  “Are you kidding?”

“Nope.  Not kidding, and also trying to take a lesson from this really smart guy I know.  He told me that if you have the shot, you should probably just take the shot.”  Tony smiled at him, sharp and happy.  “So you tell me: do I have the shot?”

“Dude.  You _had_ the shot.  You took it.”

“...I did?”

“Yeah, just now.  I’m very proud of you.”

“Oh.”  Tony glanced down again, hiding his smile.

“So maybe get your ass over here,” Clint hinted.

“Oh!  Right.”    

Clint had learned in Monaco that Tony was a good kisser; he was more than happy, here in Boston and with Tony finally safe, to learn it again.

 

* * *

 

**Author's Notes:**

1\.  Polyatomic ions are real, and they are (I'm pretty sure) something anyone who's taken a college-level chemistry course should have heard of.  Neoconfiguration is a word I just made up.  But since the literal arrangement-in-space of molecules is part of what lets the have the functions they do, a new ion that will fix Tony's palladium poisoning *would* need to be neoconfiguration.  I think, anyway.  Look, it's comic book science and I'm doing the best I can, okay?!

2\.  In case you're wondering why Tony was rubbing Pepper's nose in his new "boyfriend", it's the plot of IM2:  Tony's trying to annoy Pepper into not feeling so shitty when he dies.  (Obviously, this has mediocre success at best.)

3\.  Clint is not actually drunk when he shows up in Tony's car.  Instead, he dumps most of a bottle of cheap booze over himself and then gargles the rest, only swallowing a shot or two.  Clint drinks with Natasha; it would take more than a shot or two.

 

* * *

  

**End credits scene:**

 

Tony edged his way into the room.  SHIELD’s offices were dark and gritty, and he almost suspected that this was a front, hiding some incredibly boring cubicle farm, but hell, he was never going to prove it and also—oh, right!—didn’t give a fuck.

There was a file on the desk, and upon Fury’s direction, he picked it up and read it.  Tabs sticking out the side listed his background check, patents held, known history and associates... and at the back, one last tab read, “ _Agent’s assessment.”_

Tony flipped to it.

There was a form; the top three inches were dedicated to the agent performing the assessment— first name Clinton, last name Barton, there was a picture and apparently his specialization was marksmanship—and then a dividing line, and the header _Agent’s Written Summary._

There were only four words below it, and Tony felt his eyes crinkling when he read them.

_Tony Stark: Fuck yes!_

 


End file.
